Enrichetta Anna Sofia di Modena 

Editor: So, this is Rosalba Carriera's "Enrichetta Anna Sofia di Modena", done with pastel. It's really delicate and, I think, captures a sense of aristocratic leisure. How do you read it? Curator: For me, this piece speaks volumes about the consumption and production that defined the Rococo era. Pastel, as a medium, was incredibly fashionable. What did that signify in terms of the art market? Who was buying this and why? Editor: Well, presumably wealthy patrons who could afford the artist and the materials…but that seems almost too simple. Curator: Exactly! Think about the pigments. Where did they come from? Who ground them? And consider the sitter – her dress, her pose, the flowers in her hair, that delicate lace – it all signals a specific social class, one deeply intertwined with trade, colonialism, and elaborate systems of labor to obtain these objects and portrayals. Are we looking at just beauty here, or the representation of social hierarchies? Editor: I hadn't really considered it that way – more about the social positioning and networks needed to support its creation. That even the *making* of a fashionable artwork like this points to broader systems. Curator: Absolutely. It is critical to consider both the networks that support artistic production and what that reveals about the socio-economic contexts in which the artworks are consumed. This portrait really puts that material reality into sharp relief. Editor: It makes you look beyond the surface prettiness to see a whole world of labor and value. Thanks; I'll never see Rococo pastels the same way again.